Friday, April 03, 2009

We're going to do what now?

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

I'm done with my BD class through Park & Rec since we had our recital a couple of week ago. But, our instructor and a few of us who have had class for two years together have been meeting as a troupe for an hour after class. We work on more advanced moves, additional choreography, zills, etc. We're planning on continuing to meet on our Wednesday evenings throughout the summer.

However, rather rent the dance studio this month, and meet there since we wouldn't already be there for class, we decided to go to a drum circle in a nearby town and dance with them. (We do otherwise pay a reduced rate to rent the space for the hour after class is done.) Our instructor had attended it before, and the drum circle recently performed with a BD workshop that had been in town.

One slight problem, for/with me anyway...

...I don't dance in public.

"But, didn't you just do a dance recital?", you may be thinking. "Like, in a big auditorium for lots of people three different times?"

Well, yes, I did, but that wasn't "dancing," it was "performing." Completely different. We had a routine, we'd practiced (and practiced and practiced), I knew it looked cool, etc.

It's not that I mind being up in front of people. I don't in the least. I did speech tournaments for years in HS; I performed on stage in HS and college; I taught. Heck, I was even interviewed live for a local TC morning news show and (not live) on CNN about an new internet communication tool we were using in our school. (I was on the tech committee and it was the company pushing visibility for the product. They've since gone under, but if you search CNN by my maiden name, you'll find it.)

Those sorts of things - no problem. But DANCING? In front of PEOPLE?

Yeah, um, I think I've got something else to do that day. Maybe I'll just stand over here by the wall.

Seriously, dancing in front of other people terrifies me. At weddings, going out in college, even at this welcoming community drum circle, I'm just horribly uncomfortable with it.

And I know exactly why, not that that helps. I'm afraid of looking stupid.

I'm not good with failure or looking dumb or not doing something well in front of other people. Combine that with going to a very, very small school, where at dances everybody sat on the bleachers ('cuz dances were always in the gym) and laughed at how silly the people dancing looked. Add to the mix the fact that I'm not naturally a graceful person and, yeah, you get a formula nearly guaranteed to produce a wallflower.

But we went. And I did dance some. I also did a little drumming and a fair amount of zills towards the end.

Oh, was it ever outside my comfort zone. Even in a welcoming, supportive environment, with the rest of my troupe, it was just Not My Thing to dance in front of other people.

We're going again next week - in fact for the whole month. I know/hope that having done it once, it'll be easier next time, but yeah, I think I'll just have to chalk this experience up under "Expanding My Horizons" and "Challenge Yourself To Do Something You Think You Can't."